Apple, Amazon and Google to Split the E-Book Market – Analyst

With the popularization of electronic books expected later this year, Amazon will lose its e-book monopoly, according to an analyst. Still, the company – along with Apple and Google – will control roughly a third of the market that is projected to grow to over two billion of dollars by 2015.

“Near term, we suspect that the iPad and the new e-book agency pricing model, which requires that Amazon increase retail prices to be more consistent with Apple’s pricing, will provide Kindle with the most market share headwind. Going forward, we can envision a scenario where Apple, Amazon, and Google eventually split the market. Therefore, we expect Amazon’s share of eBooks business to fall from 90% currently to about 35% over the next five years,” said Spencer Wang, an analyst with Credit Suisse.

The analyst figures Amazon’s e-book sales will rise to $775 million from $248 million over the next five years, according to a media report, which means that the whole market will be over $2 billion per year. Meanwhile, already this year Amazon’s share will decline from about 90% to approximately 70%.

At present publishers demand that e-book operators charge different amount of money for different electronic books and also insist on increase of e-books pricing so that to minimize the impact on sales of hardback books. Considering the fact that there is hardly any actual competition among books, there will be rivalry between stores, as a result, the prices of the e-books may actually get lower.